Art of Procurement

Since Philip Ideson started Art of Procurement almost six years ago, a broad range of executives, practitioners, academics, and more have shared over 3.2 Million words of wisdom through our podcasts, webinars, virtual events, and long-form writing. Regardless of their focus or point of view, each person shared our singular goal of helping forward-thinking leaders change the game for their company by elevating procurement's impact. In this week's episode, Philip Ideson delivers a solo show update on the year to date, looking at everything we've all been through and how it has changed our lives, our work, and our perspective on the future. Listen in to hear his opinion on: The overall impact of COVID on procurement as a result of how it has affected supply markets, talent availability, investment in technology, and socially-driven initiatives. How the Art of Procurement team is working to make sure that we never get too comfortable, remaining open to feedback and inspiration and continuing to raise the bar on ourselves Purposeful changes we are making to the availability and delivery of our content and events to ensure that we remain aligned with what you need most

Procurement professionals are always plagued by the fact that no one seems to understand what we do. While this is often blamed on language barriers and the fact that procurement is always evolving, at the end of the day it comes down to one harsh reality - procurement does not have a well-established, recognisable brand. Steve Wills is the Founder and Managing Director of Procurement Central, a specialist training provider based in the UK. Steve formerly served as the Procurement Advisor to the 2012 London Olympic Games' organizing committee. He has extensive business experience with blue chip organizations and has worked with leaders in industry and commerce as a CPO to transform complex procurement functions. In this conversation, Steve and Host Philip Ideson discuss procurement's brand and how function is positioned strategically. This is a topic that is central to procurement executives and leaders, and will only become more so as procurement pushes to change how they are perceived internally and externally. Steve provides the following thoughts and examples to make the case that procurement should purposefully invest in their brand: Whether procurement's brand should be across the professional community or defined specifically within each company The lasting damage that can be done when procurement prioritizes short term goals and objectives over their longer term vision The difference it can make when the CEO or executive team 'gets' what procurement can do and why they are so valuable on the journey to organizational success

In this week's episode, which is based on an Art of Procurement Mastermind Community Category Briefing, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner ask J. Grant Caplan, President of Procurigence, Inc. and Chairperson of the GBTA Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, detailed questions about the current state of the meetings and events to better understand the conditions companies are dealing with and possible steps they can take to restart their meetings programs without incurring unnecessary risk. He shared his knowledge and experience regarding: The nuanced differences between 'meetings' and 'events' and how procurement needs to manage them How companies can navigate the complex web of policies and guidelines that help meeting and event planners decide how much to spend on what elements of their gathering Why he believes travel is a service sold as a commodity, and how that should influence procurement's handling of the category

Every time someone interacts with procurement's people, processes, or technology, it influences what that person thinks of procurement. This perception determines how early procurement is brought into a sourcing decision, if they are approached about a new business need, and how willingly stakeholders participate in procurement-led projects. Procurement may not often focus significant resources on the 'intake-to-procure' process, but distributed buyers are likely to feel different. By meeting buyer needs through an improved intake-to-procure experience, procurement has an opportunity to recast their internal image and finally realize the level of business engagement they have always sought. In this podcast, which is based on an AOP Live session, Liem Hua, Michael Denari, and Rujul Zaparde discuss How procurement is currently perceived in many organizations, and the opportunities they have for improving the 'customer experience' associated with distributed buying The common pain points in the intake-to-procure process that procurement may not even be aware of, but which are affecting distributed buyers on a regular basis How technology can empower distributed buyers without endangering procurement's ability to manage spend and suppliers

"A lot of procurement managers think, 'I have my process. It will be digitized, but I'm still in control of the process and it will remain with procurement.' But digitalization is one step further where you really question everything." Procurement has been focused on digital transformation for so long that we accept the change it will have on our work and team structures. That said, none of us is certain how emerging technologies such as RPA and AI will be incorporated into existing platforms, where we should start the process of automating procurement tasks, and what the future implications will be. To find out, akirolabs worked with Cognitive Corporate Consulting to apply the scientific method to different types of procurement tasks to capture the efficiency impact of automation. Christoph Flöthmann is one of four co-founders at akirolabs, a new and growing procurement collaboration tool focused on helping procurement professionals develop and execute more impactful supply and category strategies. His experience includes time at organizations such as Bayer, The World Bank, DB Schenker, and KPMG. In this episode, Christoph joins Host Philip Ideson to discuss: The methodology used by Cognitive Corporate Consulting and akirolabs to research the task-level impact of automation on the future of procurement and what they learned What he sees as the seven 'next generation' skills for strategic procurement professionals and teams Some of the actionable insights uncovered by their research and shared in their new whitepaper

When the first edition of Managing Indirect Spend was published, Joe Payne and Bill Dorn often spoke to customers about what strategic sourcing was and what value it could bring to their organization. 10 years later, much has changed, but a lot has remained the same. Procurement is now much better known and recognized as a valuable corporate function, and yet we are still facing many of the same challenges we were back then. Authors Joe Payne, Bill Dorn, Dave Pastore, and Jenn Ulrich all work for Corcentric, where they spend their time working with procurement teams to help them transform and mature. Many of their real life experiences are included in the book, allowing procurement leaders to learn from the journeys of others. In this conversation, the authors speak with Host Philip Ideson about: How procurement can secure 'sponsorship' for strategic sourcing projects and encourage the business to engage them as early as possible The common mistakes or 'landmines' that undermine procurement's efforts to bring spend under management Options for procurement organizational design that make it possible to address all of the levels of project complexity that naturally arise

Between corporate efforts to digitize operations and an increasingly remote workforce, telecom and technology spend is now more important than ever. Changes to the ownership or structure of a business often lead to opportunities to optimize this category - but only if procurement has it actively under management and knows what to be on the lookout for. Jeff Poirior is the President & COO of Valicom. He joined us for a recent AOP Live session focused on the unique nuances and opportunities contained in telecom spend. This category requires a specific approach, because - despite the size of the category - very few procurement organizations have a dedicated telecom specialist. This makes it a real challenge to navigate huge data sets and detailed requirements without inflating costs or impacting connectivity and service quality. In this AOP Live-based session, Jeff Poirior answers live audience questions about: How to navigate the distributed ownership typically associated with telecom spend and make a solid business case for optimization Common sources of savings, including avoiding late fees and changes to the business that justify re-analysis Supplier management strategies, including negotiation and benchmarking

We recently partnered with UNA to bring their The Sourcing Hero podcast into the Art of Procurement stable. The Sourcing Hero is a weekly 20-30 minute podcast that captures the stories of people who are rising up and beating the odds to create exceptional value within procurement, and is hosted by Art of Procurement General Manager, Kelly Barner. Today marks the launch of Season 2 of the podcast, and the first of our collaboration with UNA, and we're going to run the episode in full in the AOP feed. --- Learning to Recognize Heroes feat. Dr. Dred Scott and Anthony Clervi Over the last year, most of us have expanded our concept of what it means to be a hero. From teachers to truck drivers, and grocery store workers to hospital staff, we have plenty of community members to look up to. We've also learned that anyone, anywhere, in any role has the opportunity to be a hero to the people around them every day - whether it is in their job description or not. In this very special episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Dr. Dred Scott, President of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City, and Anthony Clervi, Principal at Una, to talk about the importance of heroism in all its forms. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City has been helping at-risk youth for over 100 years. While much has changed during that time, heroes have always been present - sometimes in the form of the adults working at the club, and other times in the children themselves.

As digital transformation progresses, corporate leadership teams are increasing their focus on the quality and availability of data. Spend analysis is just one internal data resource in a sea of data ecosystems, but it has the potential to serve as the foundational connection point for all procurement analytics. For this special series, Art of Procurement partnered with Sievo and Buyers Meeting Point to take a deep dive into procurement data ecosystems. We will explore how procurement leaders can meet their analytical requirements while also exploiting the full cross-functional value of data – data that enables corporate growth and competitive advantage. In this episode, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner provide a series recap and reflect back on the major take-aways from each interview and identify the connecting opportunities that bring them all together into one cohesive vision for data-driven procurement. What we learned about data from these diverse points of view, including what makes it valuable and how to approach the problem of poor quality data How to identify the breaks between people, systems, and processes that prevent data from driving strategic insights and actions The ways in which procurement has to approach data differently for the sake of its future potential, and how this connects to our vision for procurement as a whole

As procurement places greater and greater emphasis on building supplier relationships, what impact will that have on the role played by our contracts? Kate Vitasek has been studying the role of contracts in relational procurement for years, and she has seen the contract v. relationship question go wrong many times. She has seen companies tell suppliers that they are in a partnership, only to terminate their contract on 60 days' notice, and she has seen effective contracts fall into disarray when the buy-side company is acquired by someone else. As the architect of the Vested business model, she is dedicated to helping companies and their suppliers thrive with the right combination of contracts and relationships. Her latest book is Contracting in the New Economy: Using Relational Contracts to Boost Trust and Collaboration in Strategic Business Relationships, published in May 2021. In this episode of the podcast, Kate joins Host Philip Ideson to talk about: What a formal relational contract looks like in practice and how the change management process should work How to establish governance frameworks around contracts that are based on principles and behaviors rather than specific deliverables and KPIs Whether suppliers are open to the differences between traditional contracts and relational contracts